british common law

British common law is the law system that I suggest as a starting point for any country or region. Additional laws may be laid upon it, but these at least should be in place.

It can be summed up in two easy commands:
a) Don't hurt/steal
b) Don't lie/duck out on a contract

1) Further specification of laws: Don't hurt/steal means that you should not damage a person physically or do anything with their property of an kind. Eg: in the old times if you touched a woman in any way and she didn't approve, you could be fined three years wages. (wow!). Eg: in Switzerland if you walk onto someones land after dark they can shoot you dead, no questions. The line starts to blur with things like noise. For instance, can I call your phone 100 times a day? Can I build a reactor that emits harmful radiation across the fence from where your children are playing? I'll get to these problems later.
Oh yes, and fufill all your contracts. The line blurs again when you say to your friend "oh yeah, I can drive you to work tomorrow" and shaking hands on a deal to sell a couple thousand widgets.

2) Implications: homosexuality is ok, illegal immigration is not (unless we legalize it), driving while drunk is ok so long as you don't crash (this is true in some parts of Europe I think), abortion depends on whether or not your child is your property or has individual rights, drugs are fine, public slander and lies are ok although this might border on the issue with noise and such, etc etc.

3) Noise and slander: See, here's the problem. What's the difference between sound waves from your jackhammer passing into your neighbors airspace, and a bullet just passing across the yard into someone's skull? My mind thinks of two ways to combat this, both of which can be used at once:
a) Create a system of laws that determine the tolerance for objects and decibels passing between person, as well as laws that determine what kind of interactions/agreements are binding.
b) The media and public reputation are great motivations for people to keep to themselves. For instance, of shooting is still legal for some reason, if you shoot your neighbor, someone can publicize it, and maybe a humanitarian organization will build concrete walls around your house, or pay somebody to walk around behind you warning people that you're a murderer. Same with companies: don't follow through on a handshake deal and future deals will be much harder to make.
Ah, I love the internet!